Western Short StoryLucien Dalpe and the DesperadoesTom Sheehan

Western Short Story

The
big man at the bar, the sheriff of Wilsonville, Lucien Dalpe, kept
fondling his empty glass, kept looking in the mirror behind the bar
in the Wolfhead Saloon, the entrance door in plain view, its bat
wings moving to a slight breeze pushing from the west, from the
mountains also throwing shadows onto town. Nervousness he seemed to
exhibit to close observers, but some of them really knew better; if
any man was prepared for excitement, murderous intent, a shot in the
back, it was Dalpe, long time on a tough job, a survivor from the
outset. It was said his eyes measured feelings as well as movements
in his concerns, like an omnipresent character at work. His hat sat
lightly on his head, as did one hand on the bar top, the other at his
belt; a man always ready at his occupation.

When
the thin, gaunt gent came through the doorway, slick as a shadow and
reedy, the sheriff knew the scarecrow-like one was looking for him,
the newcomer's thin hand already lounging near his holster, the coals
of his eyes hot with hate, desperation in slow motion. With one
swoop, the sheriff slid his glass quickly and noisily down the bar;
it smashed into two other glasses, a few men scattered suddenly with
that obvious alarm, and at the doorway the gaunt cowpoke, caught off
guard, drew his pistol a half second too late, as the sheriff shot
him in the head just as the threatening weapon cleared leather.

A
dozen evening drinkers at the bar, in two low-tone and guarded
discussions, though hands and words were alive in equal annunciation,
froze in place. A full silence descended upon the room, the echo of
the single shot lost in the corners, as the dead man hit the floor
with little blood for evidence. Evening had served notice it was on
hand near Wilsonville with darkness, dread, murderous intentions, and
someone someplace having issued orders concerning mortality ...
death's domination promising to take hold sooner than later, and
perhaps more on this day, as the patrons stared at the fallen body.

The
bartender, as usual for business, pointed to two brawny customers and
said, "Take that damned back-shooter down to Smitty who ain't
had a funeral in a month. The sheriff'll pay for it."

Dalpe,
who had been forewarned of this murderous errand, was ready for more.
Fore-armed, being a deadly accurate shooter to begin with, he had
cemented connections into nearby ranches and all commercial
establishments. But had early found most of his useful information
was to come from those working women of the town, the ones who kept
company with as many ranch hands and trail drovers as possible.
Women, he believed, carried more messages and more news than any
daily or weekly cattle-town newspaper or the window placards found on
newspaper poster boards on outside walls. Wilsonville was no
different than all other towns in the territory, walls plastered with
the latest news on usually bare walls of town buildings facing the
usual single main road through the center of such towns ... but more
inside stories, truer stories, were inside the walls of rooms of
short-term rentals. Those were his gold mines of information, fact
and fiction making the rounds. A further extension of this wealth was
the ability of women to separate the fact and fiction or raise the
issues of doubt or concern ... they were, in his mind, magicians at
such delivery, peeling them clean like spuds before the boil.

It
was simple with him; canvas the women who worked much of the day and
evening, buy them a drink, hear their woes and knows, find out what
was rotten or about to be rotten in Wilsonville and the local
ranches, trail lines, freight riders, one and all. All of it was
ammunition, armor for his day, artillery of the first rank. His
father used to say, "A deaf ear does not have much to say for
itself."

*

The
incident above happened hours earlier, then night happened along the
trail and came right into Wilsonville yanking darkness with it,
lights flickering their evening temperaments. Talk, we find out
shortly, has a way of moving according to subject and predication.

Closing
time of the saloon on certain days was 12:00 PM, arranged by the
saloon owner, Tom Tuckerby, Sheriff, Lucien Dodge Dalpe, and the
owner of any herd settled down a mile from town. At this moment the
herd owner was Harry Crumley. Crumley had a slim guard on the cattle
with most of his men getting their last drinks at the Wolfhead Saloon
... supposedly for the long ride to Sedalia and the pens of the KATY
Line (Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railroad.) It was 1866, the trail
rough, the problems heavy but surmountable ... with a healthy,
rugged, true-to-the-core bunch of cowboys who were, to a man, good
riders, good ropers, good shooters, and hungry, thirsty, and
"hornery," as one old puncher had said at the outset,
"anytime we get close to a livable place on the trail."

But
heaven itself rarely visits the prairie full of longhorns on the
move, cowboys pushing them towards a railhead and the successive
faster moves to dinner plates in Chicago, New York, Boston, the
formats changed, the state of matter, the abattoirs and packagers in
the process, and the coal-wood fed engines streaking cross country,
bound to put rich and rare steaks on Eastern dinner plates, the
culmination of Texas providence and drover fortitude. 'One big man at
the bar said, "That's Slug Cantry on the floor, dead Slug
Cantry. Used to ride with me. The Devil could hire him any day of the
week if it got him off his horse. Worse cowpoke ever. I don't know
the last time he worked a drive, roped or branded a dogie, broke a
horse. I'd swear the nearest he ever got to the law was that door
there and you, Sheriff. Ain't ever been to jail I know of."

When
Sheriff Dalpe questioned several patrons of the Wolfhead, and the
owner and bartender, he promised to let the big man off on the spot
if he'd tell him what he thought was behind the hunt.

"I
don't know any reason, Sheriff, but I heard Slug was tight with a
bunch hanging back in the hills waitin' for easy goods to come along.
A whole bunch of losers just like Slug lyin' there, dead as he'll
ever be and damned good cause for it."

Others
in the room were listening with deep interest. When one man, a dark
and whiskered cowpoke, slipped out the door stealthy as a mountain
cat, it was evident that he was carrying news to an unknown
destination. He had been, of course, the subject of girl-talk during
the evening. Dalpe slipped out the side door of the saloon, mounted
his horse and rode on the backside of all the buildings on the main
street until he caught sight of the hastening rider heading out of
town on the eastern road. Owls called from barns and trees, a coyote
named his terms, and tethered horses announced their nervousness.
Night, mostly holding things to itself, did not bother to hide all
its secrets.

Dalpe
assumed he knew where the messenger was headed. Talk, as ever, had
been cheap ... a few drinks among the girls, a soft mouth telling
hard facts that it was Tyler Trasker he wanted to make sure of, yank
him again unto the arm of the law, an ex-prisoner of the state
system, a quiet and successful robber, no deaths at his hand, but a
few years of new education had been dropped into his lap behind the
bars. There are many available ways of making a living (getting
money) that do not involve gunplay, or purportedly so. He often joked
within himself, "I am now so armed with one of those ways."

Glycerin
uses and awesome possibilities he learned in prison from another
prisoner and glycerin had become his new toy; he loved the awed games
he'd brought to mind. But there were several characters he didn't
want on his trail, knowing much about the whole roster of
accomplished and successful sheriffs still alive and duty-bound in
the general area. And that roster of lawmen included Lucien Dalpe,
Sheriff of Wilsonville, the next target of his toy.

Lucien
Dalpe, of course, had been in serious binds with some of the
scurviest robbers and killers of the land and was still breathing, in
his own place ... but expected he'd sooner or later be a target for a
shot of glycerin; he could feel it coming if he did little to stop
it.

That
thought kept him alert, and now on the road he was sure would lead
him to the new munitions man on the wrong side of the law.

Ahead
of him, as he tuned his hearing senses, and all other senses at
command, he heard the beat of hoofs, and some of his concentration
grabbed onto those hoof beats. The image of a big horse came to him
and with it the shadow of the horse and rider leaving town, which he
had seen for not more than a full second. He knew he was calculating
some element of recognition he had not reached as yet. It was then
that he picked up a second beat of hoofs from behind him on the dark
trail. He sped up his gait to get closer to the man in front of him,
heard him clearer, and shifted down into a wadi and hid beside a
bushy growth, where he dismounted, held his hat over the mouth of his
horse ... and waited.

It
was not long, that wait.

It
happened as he imagined it to happen; the man behind him sped up, the
man ahead, the one who snuck out of town, drew off the trail, but
was outlined, still mounted, by a break in heavy clouds ...and
appeared as though he was the sheriff.

When
the moon broke through in a slight crescent, Dalpe saw both men in
their outlines, the one ahead draw his gun, the one behind get off
his horse, grab his rifle, shoot off one very accurate shot, and the
first man crumpled in his saddle and fell to the ground.

The
wounded man cried out, "Hell, I'm hit. I'm hit. Why'd you shoot
me, Sheriff. I was only going to talk to my boss." He let loose
a string of curses.

The
rifleman, approaching him, said, "Ringer, I thought you was him.
I thought you was the sheriff, I don't know where he got to. I was
just doing what you and the boss planned if he caught up to you when
you got too close to the hideout. Hell, Ringer, I didn't mean to
shoot you. Now McNerly will come after me for shooting you. Ringer, I
didn't mean it!"

The
plea in his voice was identifiable and Dalpe knew that Ringer, the
plant in town, had been killed by the man who followed him, the
sheriff, when he headed out of town. Now he knew the boss's name for
sure and could figure out why and what, and probably how the next
strike at him would be made with glycerin, and a whole big bang of
it. It was an open deal of the cards.

Slowly,
silently, aware of the shock of the killer, who now faced both sides
of the situation, Dalpe had him subdued and manacled and lead him off
to town to wait the next attempt on his own life by the munitions
man, McNerly.

The
sheriff swore he'd be ready for what was coming. McNerly, as was his
nature, always wanted his attempts to be known ahead of time in some
way; part of his make-up it was, the derring-do that he operated
with, part of taking advantage differently than all the other
outlaws, to find glory in his successes as though he was born for
them, planned them, carried them off, talked openly about "what
this whole thing looks like to me," so offhandedly no one person
suspected him ... except the sheriff, cagey as all get-out on his
own.

In
town there'd be more scrambling, but he'd notice, and keep track of,
those who moved slyly out of town to report the jailing of one gang
member. News and situation developments had to be ever moving from
town to McNerly's hideout, secreted someplace in the mountain range
and known only to gang members and, perhaps, some confidants, whose
identity was also kept secret. But most people had an itch to share
secrets, especially if they contained a reward of some kind.

Such
willingness he also found with women in town; some might keep a
secret with payment, some would part with the last word heard in the
night, sharing being as good as caring, good Scotch better than warm
beer, the next lover a possible husband on the edge.

Bethany
Hale was such a woman, groomed, lovely, a bit tired of her customers
and always on the lookout for a husband, a ranch house, a log cabin,
a place of her own. To Dalpe she had revealed not the location of
McNerly's hideout, which she didn't know, but had heard from one of
her customers that a last look at a specially marked rock in the
Turkadon Pass would lead a lost soul to paradise, as it was phrased
to her: "McNerly believes in some kind of heaven for people
forced to kill for self-preservation, but No Indians allowed."
She laughed heartily at that statement, knowing there was a good bit
of Indian blood in her own veins that only a few Indians knew about,
and no white men like McNerly whom Indians pitied almost as much as
hated for his way of life. There
was an advantage that she'd use in due time. Of that she was
positive.

Bethany
was the only woman that Dalpe had dealings with, on the second floor
of the saloon, and often it was a question and answer period as he
grilled her on recent loose tongues that had come her way. Some of it
was useful, most of it not worth a peso, as disparities, dislikes,
inborn hatreds made themselves known to the unknown Indian, company
for a few hours of a night. With Dalpe this new night, she
occasionally spoke Lakota Sioux at times, saying, "Tóhaŋni
waŋžíla iyápi iyóhi šni yeló," (One language is never
enough) ... and snickered, "When you're hiding your skin."

"What
secret is loose tonight?" he said, holding her hand as though
he'd leave her abruptly if the secret was important enough.

"I'm
always sorry to drive you away," she whispered in the same
language, looking around, nodding over her shoulder at the next room
with a door between them, her usual caution about "visitors
beyond." Dalpe was fully aware that she didn't trust one soul
besides him. He knew from early in the game he was her favorite and
it improved the relationship to the current and distinctive
advantage.

Bethany
pointed at the foot of the door between the rooms, where a shadow
moved, as if revealing a figure leaning close to listen to their
conversation. Without any warning or silent hand signals, he said in
a normal voice, "I know you like to handle that weapon of mine,
Bethany, but if you were to accidentally squeeze the trigger, the
bullet would go right through the door into the next room."

The
shadow moved away from the foot of the door in a hurry, and she held
her hand over her mouth to hold back a laugh.

They
whispered a bit... and the shadow came back, and he said, "Don't
take anything for real that I say. Just say 'Okay' when I point at
you." Repositioning himself on the edge of the bed, he added,
"I'm going out there before dawn, and not to that funny mark on
the rock in Turkedon Pass, but back aways where there's a trail
through rough rock falls in that other canyon and a big cave I've
known about since I was a kid. I'll go in that way and no one will
ever see me."

He
motioned her for a response, and she hugged him as part of the sport
and said, "Please be careful in that cave. There might be snakes
or some dead critters come alive in there when they smell humans."
She insisted on kissing him and wanted the thought to be complete.

He
laughed with her and kissed her back and said, "I have my own
stash in there of odd weapons, enough to fight the ghosts and enemies
of any man or gang of men. They'll never fool me or catch me off
guard in there, for if they enter that cave they're sure as shooting
dead before they get out of there. The ghosts of dead men live in
there, the ones shot and killed and never buried. I've buried every
man I've ever killed. They know me, these ghosts, and they know
others who don't bury the dead. They wait on them, kill them, leave
them above ground. Soon enough they get to hankering and join the
fold, become part of them, the lost souls.."

"You're
kidding me," she countered. "Is that why they wouldn't kill
you, too?" The smile on her face was wide as the river, and she
invited him into her arms, adding, "Oh, my darling, please be
careful out there. What time are you leaving? When will you leave me?
Must you leave me? Can't you just stay here with me and let them
awful men be what they are. You've done enough around here. You could
raise the dead to help you, I'm convinced of that and none of them
know you're smart enough to do that."

She
made it sound so good, so real, so provocative, that he held her
tightly and said, "Oh, I'll be going out there just before dawn,
when nobody will see me, and I'll sneak up on them like the rattlers
they are. They won't hear a sound from me, and I'll have the draw on
them, especially that boss of theirs, that McNerly." Then he
whispered softly into her ear, "When this is all over, Bethany,
we're going west of here a long way. We'll be going to a piece of
land I've owned for a dozen years and old friends are taking care of
it for me. You'll love it. We'll raise children there. Our children
will learn all the goodness we can teach them."

The
shadow under the door moved again, away from the door, no sounds of
the movement coming to them.

Dalpe,
as quiet as those in the next room, was out the rear window, onto the
small adjoining roof, and dropped to the ground nearly as silent. In
moments he was out on the trail, his mind clicking away on the plans
he was inventing on the move. He was well set up a few hours later
when he heard a rider in the darkness coming from town and knew it
was the man from the next room in the saloon, on the horse he had
seen at the saloon rail. Still in darkness of a sort, partial dawn
but minutes away, he saw the informant dip into a crevice and go out
of sight.

Patient,
knowing enough to wait on reactions, he knew they'd take positions
before the dawn flash. In a short time five men came through the
crevice and took positions down in front of him as he flattened
himself on a rock almost as big as a cabin, giving him a full view of
all the desperadoes, which included McNerly giving out orders in a
lowered but distinctive voice.

"Make
sure your horses are quiet and out of sight back there and get down
in position, then we'll nab the damned mouthy sheriff and send him
back strapped onto his own horse. That'll fix him for good, that and
a few holes in him, but I'm going to do the shooting when we got him
saddled for good on his mount." With a wild glee he added,
"That'll be a sight won't be seen in Wolfhead for a long time to
come, and maybe never again."

Flinging
his fist overhead in a presumption of a final victory, he positioned
his men in different places ... but each one of them, including his
own final position, was directly below Dalpe, holding his position
motionless, his voice still, and his weapons cocked ... a repeating
rifle and both pistols. He was alert to each one of the gang, their
casual looks around the area as if the task ahead of them was so
easy, a sure thing, yet needed some iota of assurance. All of them
were, at their core, cowards of one sort or another, thought Dalpe,
as he looked onto their deployment and inborn nervousness virtually
expressed in their numbers against one man of the law. It was one
more story in his life as a lawman, but it all might boil down to how
good he was with a gun; it was usually the case and a sheriff or
lawman with a bad shot, poor aim, less than best of plans, most
likely would not only be a short time on the job but a shut a short
life with the badge, and he was bounden to get Bethany out of this
life and into a new one.

Both
of them needed the move.

McNerly,
with another shout full of excitement, contemplation and expectant
good luck, broke up his deepest of thoughts; "It won't be long
now, boys, so keep your ears and eyes open. He'll be along soon, but
I'll take the first shot and you better remember. And that's an
order."

The
arrogance running through McNerly's voice, cutting knifelike into his
words, distrustful of his own crowd, sat well on Dalpe. Somehow he
managed to interpret a sense of it beforehand, enabling him to set
his own plans into motion when the right time came. He was sure he
could get off a good dozen shots even before they could draw a bead
on him; it would likely be all he needed. Dead sure of it, he was.

The
first shot hit him in the left arm, a grazing wound, not in the fat
of the arm, and made him dive for cover behind a pair of stones on
the trail, as if a thousand years earlier they had been rolled here
for his protection from secondary shots, and a fusillade from two
directions. It was evident he was caught in a cross fire from at
least half a dozen rifles, the wind carrying the sounds like a smoky
engine through a mountain tunnel. When that wind almost took of his
hat in a sudden blast, he figured mother nature was still with him
regardless of the wound. The bleeding was irregular and would need no
tourniquet to abate the flow.

It
was on the wind, rather than the second fusillade of shots, that he
concentrated, and when the third set of shots came, he decided on a
reaction. A twist of dry grass came quickly to his hand from its
gathering place between the two rocks, and to it he struck a match,
felt it puff its flame with an instant energy and tossed it out
beside one of the rocks. The wind hurried the flames in a quick rush
and the bright orange and red flames cast its dread out onto the
wind-blown prairie.

The
sets of curses were nearly audible, and he could imagine the threat
the flames had ignited and the fears caught loose on the open grass,
dry as good tinder, the gangs' mounts first to react.

Another
gust of wind leapt up behind him as if it tried to catch the slim arc
of the first flame.

Dalpe
first heard an audible curse, then the noise of a horse in panic, an
order to "hold", and the disregard that came with scurried
shadows in the false dawn now brighter with leaping flames.

He
mounted his horse, dashed away to the west and the first break in the
rushing wall of flames. Ahead of him he saw half a dozen horses
heading for the break in the bright wall of fire, a patch of darkness
in a wadi, Charmer's Stream beyond it where some women of the town
washed their clothes ... among other things.

He
waited for the gang members, who arrived on foot huffing and puffing,
stumbling along one by one. One shot into their midst followed by an
order to toss their guns and gun belts aside created more curses, but
was also accompanied by a flurry of tossed guns onto grass not yet
ignited, though the wall of flames was stretching, reaching.

Dalpe
ordered all of them, including McNerly, to flatten themselves on the
ground at the side of the stream. "Put your hands behind your
back and the first one who refuses to do it will get shot in the legs
and he can drag his own self to the doc in town."

In
turn, gun in hand, he slipped a knotted noose about each pair of
clasped hands and told them, "The sooner you get going toward
town, the farther away from the fire we'll all get ... and away from
any bullets not yet uncounted." Even that said, he had not yet
laughed, not at ineptness, not at a ludicrous sight rarely seen in
the whole of the west.

At
that moment, from behind them, two shots rang out in succession.
McNerly said, "That's the rest of the gang coming and you better
light out of here, Sheriff, or they'll show you a few new things on
their own."

Dalpe
didn't laugh at McNerly at that statement, but simply said, "Those
shots are from your own guns caught in the fire back there behind us.
I don't know which way they landed when you threw them away, but I
figure there's four more shots that might come this way, four or
more, figuring you gents might have shot a fair share of bullets at
me. Unlucky then, maybe lucky or unlucky now, but I'd still hurry if
I was in the pickle you gents are in. Marksmanship apparently don't
count a whole lot right now, not when prairie fire's at the triggers
of your own guns."

They
started moving off toward town without another word or curse,
scrambling in a clotted, knotted group, the single rope serving to
keep them in the ranks of the orderly.

Folks
of Wilsonville still talk of the scene in town that long ago morning
when a prairie fire lit up the early horizon before the flames died
out at Charmer's Stream, and Lucien Dalpe, sheriff of repute,
derring-do and smarts, came into town leading six attempted assassins
to jail, all in a neat and orderly row, for their trial and eventual
imprisonment in the territorial jail. Some of those same folks began
calling him "The Sheriff of Knottingham."